Factories were closed to avoid exceeding limits on energy use imposed by Beijing to promote efficiency
Widening power shortages in China’s north-east have left homes without power and halted production at numerous factories, while some shops operated by candlelight as the economic toll of the squeeze mounted.
Residents in the north-east, where autumn temperatures are falling, reported power cuts and appealed on social media for the government to restore supplies.
Continue reading...Policy uses women as tool for economic goals and could endanger their lives, says rights group
China’s pledge to limit abortions puts women’s bodies under the state’s control just as the one-child policy did and could endanger the lives of women seeking abortions, rights groups have said.
The Chinese government announced on Monday that it would seek to reduce abortions for “non-medical reasons” – a move seen as being in line with its attempts to accelerate birthrates.
Continue reading...Prominent pro-democracy group Hong Kong Alliance voted to disband after many of its leaders were arrested
The Hong Kong pro-democracy group that organised three decades of vigils commemorating the victims of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square massacre has voted to disband in the face of China’s sweeping clampdown on dissent.
The Hong Kong Alliance was one of the most prominent symbols of the city’s former political plurality, and its dissolution on Saturday is the latest illustration of how quickly China is remoulding the business hub in its own authoritarian image.
Continue reading...All eyes are on Xi Jinping as expectation grows that the government will have to intervene to protect small creditors
In May 2020, Chen (not his real name) decided to invest 300,000 yuan (£34,000) in property in the north-eastern Chinese city of Shenyang. “I thought the price was not too expensive and I had some extra money so I invested it,” he said. “I thought it was going to be all right because Evergrande is such a big name and enterprise.”
Chen was following in the footsteps of countless fellow Chinese, getting in on a booming property market that had turned big cities such as Beijing, Shenzhen and Shanghai into some of the world’s most expensive, amid the huge transfer of the population from rural to urban areas.
Continue reading...Entertainment industry told to uphold ‘truth, goodness and beauty’ and remove vulgar and violent content
China’s broadcasting regulator said it will encourage online producers to create “healthy” cartoons and clamp down on violent, vulgar or pornographic content, as Beijing steps up efforts to bring its thriving entertainment industry to heel.
The National Radio and Television Administration said in a notice posted late on Friday that children and young people were the main audience for cartoons, and qualified agencies need to broadcast content that “upholds truth, goodness and beauty”.
Continue reading...Joe Biden meets leaders of Australia, India and Japan in latest effort to cement US leadership in Asia
US president Joe Biden and the leaders of Australia, India and Japan highlighted their Quad group’s role in safeguarding a stable, democratic Indo-Pacific in a veiled dig at rival China.
The first in-person summit of the Quad held on Friday marked Biden’s latest effort to cement US leadership in Asia in the face of a rising China.
Continue reading...The men, who were detained by Beijing in 2018, were released hours after Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was freed in Canada
Two Canadian citizens who were detained by Beijing for more than 1,000 days have left Chinese airspace and will arrive back in Canada early on Saturday, prime minister Justin Trudeau told reporters.
A plane carrying Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor left Chinese airspace around 7.30pm Ottawa time, just hours after US authorities reached an agreement allowing Chinese Huawei executive, Meng Wanzhou, to return to China in exchange for admitting wrongdoing in a fraud case. Shortly before Trudeau spoke, Meng boarded a chartered flight organised by the Chinese government to Shenzhen, Chinese state media reported. Zhao Lijian, ministry of foreign affairs spokesperson, said her return was enabled by the “unremitting efforts of the Chinese government”.
Continue reading...The agreement with Wanzhou clears a topic of dispute between US and China and could bring release of two Canadians
Meng Wanzhou, the Huawei executive at the centre of a three-way diplomatic row between China, the US and Canada has reached an agreement with US prosecutors to resolve the bank fraud case against her, in a process that should allow her to leave Canada, where she has been under house arrest.
Meng is expected to appear virtually in a hearing on Friday afternoon in Brooklyn federal court. She was arrested at Vancouver international airport in December 2018 on a US warrant, and was indicted on bank and wire fraud charges for allegedly misleading HSBC about Huawei’s business dealings in Iran.
Continue reading...As debt-laden Chinese property giant enters 30-day grace period, officials look to limit unrest and job losses
The embattled Chinese property developer Evergrande is inching closer to the potential default that investors fear, after missing an interest payment deadline.
The company, which has total debts of about $305bn (£222bn), has run short of cash, and investors are worried that a collapse could pose systemic risks to China’s financial system and reverberate around the world.
Continue reading...Nuclear-capable bombers entered air defence zone, says Taipei, amid simmering row over competing bids to join regional trade agreement
China has voiced opposition to Taiwan joining a major trans-Pacific trade deal as it flew 24 planes – including two nuclear-capable bombers – into the self-ruled island’s air defence zone, the biggest incursion in weeks, Taiwanese officials said.
Last week Beijing submitted its own application to become a member of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).
Continue reading...Activity more overt and reckless despite US, British and other political efforts to bring it to a halt
Chinese state-sponsored hacking is at record levels, western experts say, accusing Beijing of engaging in a form of low-level warfare that is escalating despite US, British and other political efforts to bring it to a halt.
There are accusations too that the clandestine activity, which has a focus on stealing intellectual property, has become more overt and more reckless, although Beijing consistently denies sponsoring hacking and accuses critics of hypocrisy.
Continue reading...Activist Bill Browder warns of global reach of controversial law after being contacted by Foreign Office
Britain has warned some Hong Kong critics in the UK about travelling abroad, according to high-profile human rights advocate Bill Browder, highlighting concerns about the cross-border reach of the Chinese region’s national security law.
Browder, a well-known lobbyist for the use of sanctions against foreign governments involved in human rights abuses, said he was contacted by the UK Foreign Office earlier this month after he was named in a Hong Kong court during a foreign collusion case.
Continue reading...A giant 'moon' rolled to freedom in Henan province after it escaped festival celebrations. It was not the first time a large inflatable satellite went rogue: in 2016 another model moon was blown into the streets of Fuzhou in south-east China during Typhoon Meranti. The moon festival is celebrated in many east Asian countries and coincides with the full harvest moon in September
Continue reading...Downgrade by Fitch reflects jitters in markets as boss of Asia-focused bank HSBC says problems ‘concerning’
Ratings agency Fitch has downgraded its forecast for China’s economic growth because of concerns about a slowdown in the country’s colossal housing market and fears about struggling property giant Evergrande.
China enjoyed a swift economic rebound from the Covid-19 pandemic, but strict new rules on the country’s developers have caused a deleveraging rush and helped push housing giant Evergrande to crisis point.
Continue reading...Analysis: Joe Biden has cleared the decks to focus on China. But how imminent is the danger?
It may have been an inelegantly, even ineptly, executed pivot, gratuitously alienating key allies, but by leaving Afghanistan and forming the Australian, US and UK security pact in the Indo-Pacific, Joe Biden has at least cleared the decks to focus on his great foreign policy challenge – the systemic rivalry with China.
Yet the concern now is how quickly this rivalry could escalate, especially in Taiwan. The linchpin of the US alliance system in south-east Asia, Taiwan is the biggest island in the “first island chain”, the group of islands that keeps China blocked in. It is China’s next target, and as the former British prime minister Theresa May pointed out, no one quite knows if the west is prepared to fight to save Taiwan or whether the new tripartite pact in some way places a new obligation on the UK to come to the country’s defence.
Continue reading...Embattled Chinese property giant allays some market concerns despite lack of guidance over $83.5m due on a separate offshore debt
Chinese property developer Evergrande has said it would pay some of the bond interest due on Thursday, allaying fears of an imminent and messy collapse that had spooked investors.
Markets in Taiwan and China reopened lower after a two-day break, catching up with a sharp sell-off around the world triggered by concern over Evergrande’s predicament.
Continue reading...Experts welcome Xi Jinping’s announcement at UN as hugely influential, but concerns remain over domestic emissions
President Xi Jinping has announced that China will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad, using his address at the United Nations General Assembly to add to pledges to deal with climate change.
Depending on how the policy is implemented, the move could significantly limit the financing of coal plants in the developing world.
China has been under heavy diplomatic pressure to put an end to its coal financing overseas because it could make it easier for the world to stay on course to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement to reduce carbon emissions.
“China will step up support for other developing countries in developing green and low-carbon energy, and will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad,” Xi said in his pre-recorded video address at the annual UN gathering, in which he stressed China’s peaceful intentions in international relations.
Chinese president Xi Jinping said on Tuesday that China will step up support for other developing countries in developing green and low-carbon energy, and will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad.
Xi made the announcement in his statement delivered via video at the general debate of the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly.
Continue reading...If Chinese property company Evergrande sinks under its $300bn debt its failure would resound across the global economy
Evergrande Real Estate – or Heng Da Group in Chinese – owns more than 1,300 building projects in more than 280 cities across China.
Continue reading...The combat capability of the People’s Liberation Army may still be a ‘work in progress’ but it is catching up through influence and training
When Covid-19 swept across Iran last March, killing more than 1,000 people including the senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, it was the Chinese military that Tehran turned to for help. On 19 March 2020, batch loads of testing kits, PPE and face masks arrived in the Iranian capital.
In February this year, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) began to donate Covid-19 vaccines to counterparts overseas. The Cambodia armed forces have received two batches of 300,000 vaccines; Sierra Leone’s army was given 40,000 doses; United Nations peacekeeping forces secured 300,000.
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